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Allied Characters
= Politicians and Civilists = See also: Allied Supranational Bodies Dr. William Claymoore Dr. William "Bill" Claymoore (with two "o"''s, mind you), is the Allies' current top scientist in the field of unmanned combat air vehicles (or UCAVs). A graduate of Virginia Polytechnic Institute with a doctorate in avionics engineering from MIT, Dr. Claymoore began working with Norwell-Hucks in 1958. While he spent some time working on the Century Bomber's VTOL systems, the majority of his research was in the growing field of UAVs and UCAVs. Although remote-controlled airplanes existed, these were of little use for other than pilot training or (rather expensive) suicide bombing. Dr. Claymoore envisioned a completely unmanned aircraft that could actively gather information about the enemy, or even be equipped with weapons of its own to attack the Soviet Union (for who else would such a weapon need be deployed against?). Sadly for Dr. Claymoore, he was not the only one with such a vision. In 1962, a British aviation firm sold their ASM-1278 Sky Knight UCAV to the Peacekeepers for use on the new ''Von Esling class carriers. While Dr. Claymoore was miffed that someone had beat him to the first unmanned aerial combat vehicle, he was also intrigued by the Sky Knight's design (and flaws). The ASM-1278 required constant refuelling, could only carry a single 500 pound bomb, and was shot down 60% of the time. Dr. Claymoore began working on his own UCAV. His design was much larger than the Sky Knight, meant for work as an individual, and with the political mess of Gary Powers' SR-8 being shot down over Russia still in everybody's memory, he tooled with reconnaissance in mind, while retaining the capability to carry munitions. The result was the ASM-1303 Pulsar UCAV. First put into service by the Allies in 1965, the Pulsar proved its intelligence-gathering worth time and time again during WW3 and beyond. It was also chosen to carry the highly experimental "Red Matter" missile, which was rightly judged to be much too dangerous for a manned aircraft to carry. Dr. Claymoore would go on to design the Hermes, the Quasar, as well as act as a consultant on post-war improvements to the Sky Knight and its successor, the Sky Paladin. Today, he is famous as a world expert on drones, UAVs, and UCAVs of all kinds, a title which has won him no favour with the Confederates. = Military Personnel = General Staff Gunter Von Esling It can be said quite accurately that Von Esling was the Second World War for the Allies. Field Marshal in the Imperial German army when the first Soviet tanks rolled into Poland, Von Esling was propelled rapidly to the chief figure of the Reichswehr when the Soviets executed a series of devastating decapitating blows against the German High Command. Taking control of all the forces he could get his hands on, Von Esling lead his forces on a brutal counterattack, the famous blitzkrieg that fractured the unified front of the Soviet offensive into dozens of smaller groups, disrupting the pace of the invasion and preventing the Soviets from fully organizing to push past Imperial Germany. A master of logistics and force deployment, Von Esling managed to take on ten thousand Soviet tanks and more than four million soldiers with less than eight hundred Panzers, a handful of half-tracks and a hundred and fifty thousand men and hold them off for over six months while the rest of Europe mobilized. Such was his brilliance that it is frequently speculated that a driving force in the formation of the unified Allied Army was giving him a command position, and it is thanks to him and to the skill of the soldiers under his command that the Allied doctrine is so heavily influenced by German tactics and strategy. Towards the end of the war, Von Esling had gained considerable notoriety in Soviet ranks, and many attempts were made on his life. Knowing that the Soviets would go out of their way to ensure his death, he used this to his advantage to overcome the Krakow Flak Complex in early 1955. Cracking the complex was almost impossible; more than fifty bombers had been destroyed by SAM sites during attempted attack runs, and several units had been decimated by its artillery, large garrison and compliment of Hind helicopters. Moving to personally command the operation, Von Esling had his Bluejay transport helicopter shot out from under him, leaving him badly wounded. Here, he formulated his last plan. He set out from the wreck with a radio and openly broadcast his location, prompting Soviet forces to rush into the surrounding countryside to find him, practically abandoning the complex, allowing the surrounding Allied forces to close in and take over, turning the local V2 launch sites around to bombard Lwów. Von Esling managed to evade capture for several hours before being hunted down by a flight of Hind helicopters, though his body was later recovered and buried in his hometown in one of the largest military funerals in modern history. Von Esling helped to spur the creation of the Peacekeeping Divisions, and though he died prior to their formation he is considered their honourary supreme commander to this day. Two of his grandchildren serve in the Allied Forces, including the head of the Experimental Division. Erwin Rommel Erwin Rommel was the commanding officer of the 7th Panzer Division of the Imperial German Army. The division earned the nickname The Ghost Division because it moved with such speed through the Polish countryside that nobody seemed to know where it was, not even Allied high command. He was known for his ability to lure entire Soviet armoured divisions with a few speedy tanks into a death trap of anti-tank guns. During the war, he was knighted by his Kaiser; Louis-Ferdinand, for his service to the Reich and Fatherland and to the Allied cause, meaning that now, it is technically appropriate to refer to him as "Erwin von Rommel." Nikos Stavros The son of a wine grower, Nikos Alexandros Stavros had a reputation as an intelligent but lonely boy, whose temper problems led him to a problematic youth. He found his call when enlisting in the military, where he quickly rose in the ranks. He fought successfully against the Central Powers in World War I, although this didn't stop him from forming a close friendship with German commander Von Esling during World War II, when Stavros was personally selected by Von Esling to become the second in command of the Allied militaries. Stavros was a skilled commander who supervised the defence of southern Europe, preventing the Soviets from destroying more than they did. The attack on Greece turned the war personal, which fuelled Stavros into fighting personally at the front for two months while still commanding, which he received heavy criticism for but still managed. When Von Esling died, he took over the position as Allied Supreme Commander, signing the peace treaty with the Soviets, until his death by lung cancer in 1961. Although he is not as iconic as Von Esling he is fondly remembered by most Greeks, and despite the Syndicate influence in Greece, the attempted removal of the Stavros Memorial in Athens met with protests so large that the monument had to be left, a lone symbol of the Allies in the Acropolis Sprawl. Robert Bingham Born British, Bingham is the current supreme commander of the Allied military forces. It is often thought he wouldn't have reached his current position if he did not have his unique foresight. For Robert Bingham always had a talent in predicting his opponent’s moves, and he exploited it by ordering his most capable commanders to places he predicted would be attacked. That strategy proved to be a remarkable success in the last war, with 4 Allied commanders of his choosing pulling off victory after victory. Commander Warren Fuller was stationed in the USA at the time president Ackerman defected, Commander Lissette Hanley was in control of the Capitol Guard before the invasion of Switzerland began, and both Commander Giles Price and Alex Manning were in close proximity to Cuba at the time the Soviets attempted to launch a Kirov sneak attack. Although effective, the strategy proved costly, with three out of four of his ace commanders placed on leave. Currently, Bingham is torn between recommissioning his old commanders, and learning to work with the newer, less experienced commanders. Curtis LeMay One of the most controversial figures in Allied history, Curtis LeMay (or Saint Curtis, as he is known to airmen, and Bombs-Away LeMay as he's known to civilians) is the man most responsible for the extensive air focus of the Allied military. During the Second World War, LeMay reorganised the Allied air force and conducted massive strategic bombing against Soviet assets from bases in Turkey. In the most recent war, LeMay constantly pushed for the expansion of bombing campaigns and for striking directly at the heart of enemy industrial power, though he grows increasingly frustrated with the Allied reluctance to risk civilian lives. In addition to this, he supports the Vindicator, Mesofortress, and Century projects, ensuring them a place in the Allied military. Though LeMay's bombing raids in both wars were highly effective, the controversy generated by the high civilian casualties has created a highly polarised image of the commander. To military personnel, especially airmen, he can do no wrong, but many civilians consider him a merciless butcher. Though he remains an active part of the Allied military (he continues to advocate the destruction of North Vietnam's infrastructure through strategic bombing) he is considering retirement. Alex Manning Born in 1930 in the tiny town of Bentley, Alberta, Alex Manning, nephew of Alberta premier Ernest Manning, joined the Canadian military as a clerk in 1949, and received further training as a radio operator, logistics technician and map specialist during his early career. His attention to detail and initiative saw him attached to the staff of General Jean Victor Allard when they shipped to the German Front in WW2, gaining a broad range of rear echelon skills and quickly solidifying a reputation as General Allard's most reliable aide. He first caught the attention of his superiors during Operation Colossus in 1951, when General Allard's command vehicle was struck by Soviet artillery using an electromagnetic rangefinder to zero in on the sources of radio transmissions. The general and most of his staff incapacitated, Manning managed to keep the forces under Allard's command organised through the use of lower tech signals throughout the next two days of fighting while the unit was cut off. Manning was quickly rotated away from the front lines and was part of the first class of Command School, a new program intended to create specialised strategic advisers in the face of the rapidly changing nature of modern war. One of the youngest and least experienced, Manning nevertheless made a name for himself and upon graduation in 1953 spent the rest of the war as an advisor and field supervisor for various generals. Upon the end of the war, Manning left the Allied military in pursuit of higher education, obtaining a Masters degree in Finance from McGill University in 1960 and working for the Finance Ministry of Canada. As war loomed in Europe, he helped to organise Canada's economy for a war footing, believing he could do more good helping logistics than in command. However, in 1966, with most of Europe under Soviet occupation, he was approached by the Peacekeepers, who were desperate for more commanders to replace those captured or killed by the Soviets during the fall of France. Manning soon found himself in command of forces on Brighton Beach, repelling the Soviet invasion. He led several campaigns in the liberation of France before being recalled to lead the invasion of Cuba, and then being shuffled to the Pacific Front and soon obtaining general command of the theatre. He quickly surmised the weaknesses in Japanese strategic thinking that allowed the Allies to successfully force a surrender out of the Empire, which saw Manning promoted to second in command of the Peacekeeper Divisions. Manning believes very strongly in the power of logistics; he considers actual tactics and strategy to be secondary concerns at best when compared to the all-consuming importance of getting high quality soldiers, machinery and ammunition to the front line in a timely fashion. A strong proponent of SPAM modules and field bases, Manning is known for taking a combined arms approach that maximises the expenditure of ammunition against carefully chosen targets in the safe knowledge that his carefully laid out supply lines will reward aggressiveness over conservation of resources on the field. The day the war ended, rumour has it that Manning found himself in the unfortunate position of being asked out for victory celebrations by both his intelligence officer Eva McKenna and famed Allied Commando Tanya Adams. It's unknown how he managed to successfully defuse the situation. Manning's intelligence officer is Lieutenant Eva McKenna, codenamed "Gem" so people won't be confuse her with Eva Lee. She has retired from military service to fully devote her time to being the "face" of the Allied nations, loaning her likeness to many posters, advertisements, and propaganda. Field Commanders Warren Fuller Called "Captain America" by admirers, Warren Fuller could be described for all of his life as an All-American boy. He had his trademark fervor from a fairly early age, routinely taking on bullies larger than himself (an action he would later repeat over and over again, albeit on a global scale.) To do so, he took many youth wrestling and boxing classes, while keeping a fine schedule of after-school work. During WWII, Fuller rushed to join up, even though America hadn't joined yet, simply because he knew America, being the Good Guy, would help its fellow Good Guys in Europe fight off the Bad Guys in the Soviet Union. Fuller excelled in every capacity that could be tested, and was sent to join the 5th Airborne Cavalry. When America did join the war, Fuller was decorated several times for going beyond the call of duty. By the end of the war, Fuller was a full officer, and was receiving training to become a Commander. However, the ACIN uncovered a peculiar fact. Along with his assassination of Stalinist targets, Cherdenko also ordered the KGB to assassinate highly specific Allied targets at any cost. This included General Carville of the US Army (to no one's surprise), Tanya (to everyone's amusement), and Senator Michael Dugan of the United States (to everyone's confusion). Most surprisingly, Warren Fuller and his intelligence officer were also included, to no one's understanding. The assassinations failed, and it was assumed that Fuller was safe (from assassination, at least.) But Cherdenko was merely biding his time. Early in WWIII, when Fuller was a full Commander, a large operation was undertook by the Red Army, which was opposed by many officers. Regardless, Fuller's HQ was identified, isolated, and surrounded by increasingly large waves of Soviet armour. While escape was possible, Fuller refused to evacuate, as he realised how much the Soviets wanted to neutralise him and decided to use that to his advantage. Personally commanding a group of hand-picked volunteers, he launched a feign breakthrough while the rest of his forces broke through in another direction. As the main force escaped, his rear guard was destroyed and he was taken prisoner. Cherdenko ordered his execution, but a morass of agents wanting to interrogate him and protesting officers not wanting to break international laws gave him the time to escape his cell and avoid Soviet patrols (often using his wrestling training to kill them unarmed) to get all the way back to the front and resume his duties. After the war, his hand in killing President Ackerman affected him deeply; he had to destroy one symbol of freedom to preserve another. Friends noted that he was spending hours pounding into punching bags until his hands bled, so the Allied Nations put him on administrative leave so he could regain his senses. Currently, he is resting in the one spot of America where the Confederates likely couldn't reach him; the US Virgin Islands, with expenses paid by the Allies. He's also left alone because the Confederates fear his personal combat skills, which he is keeping in top shape for when he returns to active duty. Warren Fuller's intelligence officer is Lieutenant Eva Lee. She is codenamed "Athena" to differentiate her from the other Eva in the service. She is currently being hidden in an unknown location after she was found out to be the Queen of Hearts in the Confederate's "Most Wanted" deck, due to her collusion in Ackerman's death. Giles Price II. Perhaps the finest air marshal serving the Allied Nations, Giles Price II is a man born to fly. The son of a World War 1 pilot the Royal Air Corps, Giles grew up listening to his father's stories of how the sky was the last true honorable battlefield. Following in his father's footsteps, Giles joined the Royal Air Force just in time for WW2, first flying Nimbuses and later Hawker jumpjetss. During the war Giles quickly became the Royal Air Force's best pilot, and by the end of WW2 held the record for most downed enemy aircraft of any pilot of the war. During the interwar period Giles remained in the military, and while still a pilot at heart, he gladly accepted a command positon and with the outbreak of WW3 was put in charge of Von Esling Airbase at Keflavík, Iceland, but later was called back to assist when the Soviets attacked Britain, his home country. He was also present at the attack on the Soviet base in Cuba. Citing his relatively advanced age, he rejected the offer to be the first pilot to fly the new Achilles fighter. Regarded as one of the most successful commanders during the war, Price has now temporarily retired to write a book on his experiences, citing a need to relax after four years of constant warfare. Giles Price's intelligence officer is Lieutenant Halldór Eiríkurdóttir. Eiríkurdóttir is currently on leave along with Price, as she will be reactivated if Price returns to service. Currently, she is running a charity for orphans and widows of Allied pilots that have died in the line of service. Lissette Hanley The position of Commander is not one of strategic acumen. The Commander is instead sent to trouble spots around the globe and is given complete tactical control of an entire battlefield. Strategic operations are left to other officers. Therefore, complete military training is not necessary, and Commanders can come from many occupations, like scientists or spies. The only necessary qualifications, other than extreme top tactical skills, are the knowledge of operating battle-control computers. This system has revolutionised warfare, but is not without criticism, which nowadays points at the case of one Commander Lissette Hanley. The details of Agent Hanley's life and recruitment are classified by the ACIN and are sealed until 1992. By reputation, however, Agent Hanley was one of the most capable of ACIN's agents. While, like all spies, she could do about anything, her specialty was charm and seduction. Her playful attitude could make enemy spies underestimate her, while her ability to sexually attract men (and the occasional woman) would make a Satyr blush. She apparently foiled many Soviet plots and stole many secrets, but her career was cut short when photos surfaced of her in bed with one Agent DuBois, who was easily identifiable by his trademark balaclava. Lisette was fired for her illicit affair; Agent DuBois was never caught due to his custom of wearing a balaclava. Hanley was not done with serving the Allied Nations yet, however. Her labyrinthine mind and ability to read people also translated well into figuring out what enemies would do on the battlefield, and she was promoted to Commander, trading in her catsuit for an officer's dress. Even though she had learned her lesson in not having affairs with fellow soldiers, she still displayed several eccentricities. One famous example was her impressing everyone around her by often speaking in the accent and language of their home country; Manning particularly received most of this, being talked to exclusively in her Canadian accented English instead of her "real" French. She was just as capable in a military HQ as she was in the backstreets of European cities, and when WWIII came along, she excelled in many early battles and perhaps won the war all together. Unlike many of her fellow Commanders, she responded better under the pressure of hopeless odds, having pulled herself out of worse before. Her reputation made her Field Marshal Bingham's favourite commander, and earned her a place in several high-profile battles, including the invasion in Switzerland and the Battle of Tokyo. However, the pressure of those battles, the war itself, and a pre-existing condition caused a mental breakdown in the once reliable commander. She began to exhibit odd, sometimes violent behaviour. The short bursts of rage and instability were overlooked by Allied command, who were not planning to send one of their most valued commanders to rehab just yet. Eventually they were forced to; An incident that included several Cryocopters freezing and towing civilians and POWs to Shiba park (her command post in Tokyo) was uncovered by Interpol. One of the spies from the Cannes operation was brought in to disable a thumbprint accessed lock on a small building in the park (apparently regular engineers were unable to hack it). Inside, several Peacekeepers apprehended Commander Lissette, who was admiring her newly found collection of frozen statues. She was relieved from her duties and sent to an asylum in her hometown where she is being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder and violent outbreaks. Some Allied officers, including Bingham, are debating if she should be allowed to rejoin her position in the Allied military once her mental illness has been cured. Lisette Hanley's intelligence officer is Lieutenant Amita Basanti. Basanti claimed to know nothing of her superior officer's illness, a likely story proven right by the thumbprint lock installed on the "garden" door. Basanti is currently awaiting reassignment. Douglas Hill When the US Marine Corps were integrated into the Allied Marines during the interwar period, the Allies were gifted with then-Major Douglas Hill. A veteran of the Second World War, Commander Hill served continuously in combat from 1951 to the end of the war, pulling favours and doctoring his own documentation in order to stay on the front lines for the duration of the war. His combat actions earned him a chest full of medals, a meteoric rise through the ranks, and an inoperable Soviet bullet lodged in his hipbone. When the Second World War ended, Hill was said to have been found crying in his foxhole, claiming the bullet he had been saving for Stalin would now go to waste. During the interwar period, Hill served in any theatre that would have him, resulting in an extreme depth of experience, which served him well during the Third World War. The moment the first Soviet tank rolled over the Polish border, Hill was in the thick of the combat, assisting a dozen different outfits while he was technically on leave before reporting back to his unit as they were mobilised. After refusing three attempts to promote him above Colonel, which would remove him from field service, he was finally granted command of the Hellions, an extraorganisational group originally intended to perform an airborne raid deep into Soviet-occupied Europe, a "one way trip" intended to destroy as much infrastructure as possible prior to the liberation. This allowed Hill to continue serving on the front line while also putting his considerable strategic talents to work. So hated was the man by the Red Army that a unit of Soviet bears was specially trained, using scent markers, to find and kill him. When one of them burst into his command tent, Hill is said to have killed it with a combat knife and a well-timed diving knee drop. The moment the war ended, Hill arranged himself to be transferred to Vietnam, where he almost immediately disappeared into the jungle with a handpicked unit of ARVN Rangers and Peacekeepers. The only evidence that he remains alive is that Vietcong and NVA units captured by the Allies all tell stories of a vicious band of killers, led by a giant who cannot be harmed by mortal men, who comes in the night and leaves only corpses in their wake. Lydia Winters The slightly improbable career as a top Allied military officer started for Ms. Lydia Winters when she took a job as a receptionist for Bell Laboratories, which had just been granted the Nobel Prize for its research into solar technology. Born as a middle-class child in southern England, Lydia Winters and her family had moved around Europe for ten years, resulting in her being able to speak six languages more or less fluently, before settling in New Jersey where she went through her higher education, studying information technology at the Rutgers University. Her father was an officer interested in military tactics, which she would absorb unconsciously during family dinner discussions. Taking an interest in the company's research, she studied solar technology on her spare time, and listened in to the company scientists' meetings. In 1956, when they were discussing the efficiency problems of the solar cells preventing practical usage in large scales, Lydia made an off-hand suggestion of deploying the solar cells in space. After being questioned about the details of her idea and her general knowledge of the matter, which was later discovered to surpass that of even some of the scientists, Lydia was quickly offered a place in the team working on solar technology. She would prove instrumental in the designing of the future Athena Satellite Uplink Network. Content with her work, Lydia took up studies in military tactics while working for the newly founded Angstrom Defense, pioneering the usage of a self-programmed primitive text-based "computer game" to practice field tactics. Showing skill, she applied for the Allied officer program and rose through the ranks. While not a major player during World War III, she provided tactical advice to several fellow commanders, especially regarding the usage of the Athena Cannon which she was partly responsible for. Post-war, she has primarily been assigned to tutor junior officers in satellite combat. Seraina Lar The last one to picture Seraina Lar as a military officer before the war started was probably herself. Born to a family of doctors in the Austrian city of Salzburg, Seraina showed talent for science and biology even as a child. Graduating with top scores from the Austrian "elite schools" founded before 1962, and as one of the few girls to do so, she went on immediately to become the first woman to study Biology and Molecular Biology at the same time at the University of Vienna, doctoring in Medicine. Instead of enrolling as a doctor, which she could easily have done, Seraina decided to continue her studies abroad. After two years of Physics studies at the University of Cambridge, Seraina got involved in a project on particle physics endorsed by the Allied Forces. Her dedication to the project served a vital role in producing the blueprints to what would become the Particle Expeller. Allied military elements took note of her, and Seraina was persuaded to leave her studies to work for the Allies. When the war broke out, she joined the Experimental Division, working on various experimental projects. Her devotion to personal equality and freedom motivated her work for the Allies, and also led her to campaign for abolition of the elitist Austrian school system. As the Allied Experimental Division's technologies began to be employed with increasing frequency, Seraina committed herself to seeing that the powerful technologies she worked on were used properly, and to this end enlisted in the Allied Commander program, undergoing education in battle tactics and strategy, and graduating from the training course as a full Commander. During the Alpine campaign, she commanded the experimental units sent into the assist the regular Allied forces, which proved themselves invaluable in the recapture of Merano and Innsbruck. An inherently masterful multitasker, Seraina is an active commander of the Allied Experimental Division, and is currently educating junior officers in the use of the experimental units employed by the division. While talented, she is still new on the field, and strives to learn more about the arts of combat, the human mind and quantum physics; any subject she comes across. Ralph von Volte The qualifications for joining the Allied space program are extremely rigorous, and the Space Patrol only selects the best and brightest from all around the world. Thousands try to join every year, and at the end of the lenghty process of selection, only a handful make it. Even if one is clearly talented, one might still not make it, as was the case with a young German graduate by the name of Ralph von Volte. Though (to some, at least) he was undoubtedly perfect for a position onboard the ANV Saturn, for various reasons he was strictly ruled out. Still, talent is a terrible thing to waste, and Volte was immediately approached by the Allied Forces, with the proposition of becoming a Commander. He accepted. Like others, he underwent the intensive training course that all aspiring Commanders have to go through before they can qualify as a Commander, during which he applied his near-prodigial mathematical ability to the formulation of battlefield tactics, while also showing a particular affinity when it came to operating battle-control computers. Being a grandson of the Colonel Ernst von Volte, commander who died in defense of the Chronosphere prototype during World War II was another obstacle which he had to overcome from his opponents. Making it to the end of the course where many others didn't, he joined the ranks of the other Allied Commanders, and quickly established a reputation for himself. The reputation he gained among his colleagues was that of a rather strange person. He is noted by many of his fellow Commanders and officers to be somewhat aloof, highly quirky, and generally poor where it comes to interacting with other people. Many also suspect him to be somewhat unstable mentally, and numerous rumours abound about the reason why he was rejected from the space program, something he refuses to discuss with anyone. However, while his social ability is highly suspect, his tactical abilities are unquestioned. While the young major has little experience where it comes to actual combat, he has proven nearly unbeatable in simulations and training exercises, planning out his tactics in painstaking detail and calculating the various probabilities beforehand, with multiple contingency plans already prepared should something go wrong. It is said by some that Ralph von Volte has prepared plans for just about every conceivable scenario, and some rumours even go so far to claim that he has programmed his battle computer with some sort of "battle algorithm" that does all the work for him. Category:Characters Category:Lore